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Uncommon galaxy 31 EP

IC 2921

RA 173.2053° · Dec 10.2965° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Galaxy +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely +6
  • Spiral galaxy +5
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Galaxy · +14
  • Outside our galaxy entirely · +6
  • Spiral galaxy · +5
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it actually is. A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.
  • Spiral. A spiral galaxy. Those arms are not solid structures but traffic jams — density waves that stars drift into and out of as they orbit.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Deep in the extragalactic distance — further than the entire Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
  • Scale. Home to hundreds of billions of stars — a universe unto itself, and every one of those points of light could have planets.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 16.9 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Leo.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

constellation
Leo
dist ly
610281324.1736
dso type
G
hubble
Sa
mag
16.94
name
IC 2921
radial velocity kms
12812
redshift
0.0437
size arcmin
0.59
surface brightness
23.49

About IC 2921

IC 2921 is an uncommon galaxy. It lies about 610,281,324.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Leo and shines at apparent magnitude 16.94.

A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for IC 2921 in the constellation Leo. At apparent magnitude 16.94, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, IC 2921 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why IC 2921 is an uncommon galaxy

IC 2921 scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Galaxy, Outside our galaxy entirely, Spiral galaxy, On the zodiac and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.